Wow Simon, yet again you saved me from pulling my hair out. This is the third time I have used your companies services and I am never disappointed, prompt responses, honest communications and a fair price. What more could you ask for…Thanks again, I hope to not be in touch but knowing me I am sure I will.
Regard Julie

Dear Simon, Thanks for your expert help in setting up my new Dell Laptop. I’m sure I would have had difficulty trying to do it myself. I’ve not yet tried the Skype, It’s good to know that I can call you if I have any problems. Thanks. Stanley

Dear Simon, Many thanks for you help in sorting out our computer to-day. We receiced first class service and will recommend you to any of our friends in need of your computer expertise.

Many thanks

Thank you Simon – for fixing my PC so quickly, for upgrading it and for taking the time to help me understand what you have done. And thank you for managing not to make me feel completely inadequate!

Penny

I was pleasantly surprised to see the Amazon Kindle app for iPad. A portal to the half a million or so books in electronic form. A quick tap on the Buy Now button and the book is swiftly downloaded to the device ready for you to read. It’s good to see the thought process from Amazon hasn’t been limited to pushing their own Kindle device and they recognise the potential for the new breed of tablet device.

So much so that I had another surprise yesterday when I spotted the release of the Google Android Kindle app. For those of you who read that with confusion, Android is an operating system for mobile phones and tablet devices, it has an app market, similar to the iPhone & iPad which opens up your device to make it truly yours, to make it a business tool, gaming tablet, multimedia player, or all three, the choices are endless!

So in the excitement I headed over to the app market and downloaded the app on my new HTC Desire Android phone and downloaded the books I’d already purchased using the app on my iPad, so whether I was on the move or at home I have access to my books…

If you have an iPad or Android device get the Kindle app now!  

If it’s just software you’re having problems with then we can fix it with remote support, no need for an engineer visit and the hourly rate is lower, just £25!

We’re now pleased to offer an annual plan for remote support with a special introductory offer price of just £100 (1 PC) or £150 (2 or more PC’s).

Using a secure encrypted connection to your PC which you control, sit back and watch as our engineers work their magic and get you back up and running in no time.

I’ve just spent a good hour or more fascinated by a You Tube phenomenon called Will it Blend? Which then led me to the official website www.willitblend.com. If you’ve ever wondered what can be blended other than fruit for a nice smoothy drink then take a look at this. The latest iPad, iPhone, TV Remotes, a Ford Fiesta! Glow Sticks, light bulbs, a crowbar just to name a few of my favourites, and there’s pages and pages of these videos. A great bit of fun and worth an hour of anyones time! Take a look…….

Dell has updated its premium Studio XPS range with the new 7100 featuring the latest AMD 6 core processors! Starting at £579 for the base pack and reaching £1079 with further customisations available. Its not just a fantastic performing machine, it’s a bit of a good looking one too. Take a look at the picture gallery:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/superview.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&pageoverride=gallery_view1&s=dhs&xdb=Z2xvYmFsOnByb2R1Y3RzOmRlc2t0b3Atc3R1ZGlvLXhwczpmbGFzaDpzdHVkaW8teHBzLTcxMDAjcmVnaW9u

Then let Simple PC configure your perfect Studio XPS!

This month’s update from PCTools focus’s on software piracy and the pitfalls of using such softwares.

Software piracy is the illegal copying of software for distribution or resale, to friends, colleagues, or online. Arguably, the most dangerous form of software piracy relates to what many people consider simple personal use; buying a software program and then installing it on more than one personal machine. Many people are not even aware that what they are installing is technically pirated software!

People may not know the real risk that pirated software poses to your online safety. If someone isn’t running a legitimate version of their software, he or she is denied access to crucial updates. Software manufacturers issue these updates, called patches, on a regular basis to fix security flaws before they can be widely exploited by criminal hackers. Skilled hackers can manipulate the flaws to spread viruses, which can corrupt data or impede a system’s performance, or install trojans, which allow cybercriminals remote access to a machine.

In a quest to save money or beat release dates, people might try downloading software from unauthenticated websites claiming to provide it for free. They may think they’re getting a bargain, but are they aware of the legal and financial costs they might have to pay for unintentionally using pirated software? Not only are there implications to being caught, but the software could be lacking critical updates and risks exposing their personal identity, finances and sensitive information to theft and malware.

Registered software users are kept informed of upcoming patches. Regular scans will ensure the speedy recognition of malware in the case of a zero-day attack, a type of attack that exploits a hole about which the software vendor is not yet aware.

Tips to ensure you are using legitimate software:

The Pac-Man game Google put on its home page gobbled up almost five million hours of work time, suggests a study.

The playable version of the classic video game was put on Google’s front page on 21 May to celebrate 30 years since the launch of Pac-Man in Japan.

The search giant reworked the game so the layout was arranged around letters forming its name.

The Pac-Man game proved so popular that Google has now made it permanently available on its own page.

Time delay

The statistics on how many people played and for how long were gathered by software firm Rescue Time. It makes time-tracking software that keeps an eye on what workers do and where they go online.

On a typical day, it suggests, most people conduct about 22 searches on the Google page, each one lasting about 11 seconds.

Putting Pac-Man on the page boosted that time by an average of about 36 seconds, the firm said based on the browsing habits of 11,000 Rescue Time users.

The firm believes this is a relatively low figure because only a minority realised that the logo was playable. To play, people had to click on the “insert coin” button which replaced the more familiar “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on 21 and 22 May.

Extrapolating this up across the 504 million unique users who visit the main Google page day-to-day, this represents an increase of 4.8 million hours – equal to about 549 years.

In dollar terms, assuming people are paid $25 (£17.50) an hour, this equates to about $120m in lost productivity, the firm said.

For that money, suggested Rescue Time, it would be possible to hire all Google’s employees and put them to work for about six weeks.